The main thing to remember is, you got to keep your head down and keep working, and try not to scratch at those mosquito bites that by now have put raised welts on your forearms and the back of your neck and around your ankles where the sock elastic sags.
Only female mosquitoes bite — did you know that? — and scratching makes the itch worse. Puts the poison in deeper. Pretty Face has walked toward all the men, and she is standing so close now that if you pulled back with the scythe and let it fall, like a pendulum, you'd slash through the hem of her soft cotton dress and nick her ankles, at the least, maybe even more.
And then she says, looking right at you, “I brought y'all something to drink,” and lifts a gallon glass jug out from that box and unscrews the lid and passes it to you first. “I didn't bring any glasses, though,” she says, a little quieter now.
You lay your scythe down on the ground in front of her and take the jug from her outstretched hands and hold it up to your mouth. Lemonade. The taste is sharp and tart at first, biting, then turns sweet, so sweet and delicious you think you might not ever be able to let go of the jug, just drink and drink and by now, the three other hands have swarmed in, wanting their share of refreshment and relief, too. That's how it happens. It's all fine and gentle at first — you just want your drink; after all, she handed it to you, you didn't just imagine it — but then the others swarm in. They see what you got. And they want some, too.
“Come on, now,” one of the men says, irritated, and you pull the jug away from your mouth, spilling out some of the tart liquid, catching drips on your chin where it burns a little, and pass it to the next man.
You think, ‘How long has it been? How long since you had something this sweet?’ Fine and Dandy, sugar candy. Now, Pretty Face stands back, looking hopeful and watching everybody, but especially watching you. She looks down at the hem of your pants, ragged from wear and ringed with field dirt, and, reflexively, you reach down to swipe at whatever is there.
The jug comes around your way again, and now, when you grab hold with both hands, the clear glass is smudged with grimy fingerprints and dripping with gray condensation, sweat beads mixed with the dirt from everybody's hands. It feels good; the trails of water streaking down your wrists, cool and cleansing, like dewdrops. Like teardrops.
Pretty Face watches you drink from the jug, satisfied that her gesture is appreciated.
Fields like this have to be cleared by hand; bring in a piece of equipment and you risk scarring the land; rip it up and you've done just as much harm as good.
This time, you know better. You know how to work it. You know how to handle the field because there are no second chances. Tear it up, and you won't keep working on this crew; tear it up, and they'll send you away for good.
Mama says the work has been good for you, should have had something like this ten years ago before we all knew what was going to happen, before the itch got so powerful you'd scratch and slap and claw until you drew blood, pawing uncontrollable at skin and flesh like a raving animal, getting at an itch so strong it was enough to drive any man insane.
Some of the men on the crew dip, chew tobacco. When the bites swell, you ask one of the men to spit so you can cover the bite with 'bacca juice, enough to cut the bite off from oxygen and kill the itch. A field fix, they call it. So you can keep working. So you can keep your head down and push harder to get to the exhaustion that anesthetizes your muscles so far down deep every night that you can't move, that keeps you from wanting to go out after dark, even if you were allowed.
Just now, without warning, Bossman hollers out, “Ok,” and he means “get back to work,” and he means “get away from the girl,” and Pretty Face looks embarrassed. Pretty Face holds out her hands for the jug from the other field hand who had taken it from you. It's empty, and she puts it back in her cardboard box to tote it back down the hill.
“Well,” she says. The field hands all say “thank you ma'am,” and “that sure hit the spot,” and you look up, lifting your gaze up from where you've been staring down at your pants legs, catching her in your sights now, eye to eye, so much closer than when she was downhill putting up laundry. For a few seconds, neither of you break away; neither cuts the invisible line stretched between two people on which is hanging so much.
Her face, open and forgiving, seems like an invitation, hopeful, beckoning.
And if you could choose, if you could imagine it, if you could make it so, you'd walk back down the hill with her and go inside the house where you'd take off your shoes and stained socks and feel the cool wood floors underfoot and the soft breeze through the window screens, and she would slowly strip you from the rest of your field clothes, your yellowed cotton t-shirt and faded work pants and even your thinning undershorts, dirt and grime embedded so deep down into the fibers, and wash them all clean.
